


Give Me a Woman

by HoodedAndromeda



Category: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bad coping mechanisms, Bittersweet, Bubba Sawyer (mentioned), Depression, Drayton Sawyer (mentioned), F/M, Grandma Sawyer (mentioned), Grandpa Sawyer (mentioned), Hopeful Ending, Loneliness, Nubbins Sawyer (mentioned), Past Relationship(s), Self-Pity, Sexual Frustration, poor coping mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26740483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoodedAndromeda/pseuds/HoodedAndromeda
Summary: Chop Top struggles to accept that his life has turned out differently than he ever could've predicted.
Relationships: Robert "Chop Top" Sawyer/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Give Me a Woman

**Author's Note:**

> Give me a woman, give me a blues tune  
> Before I start roamin', just make it real soon  
> I know that somewhere she's waiting for me  
> I know that she'll care, won't make me lonely  
> Give me a woman  
> Any kinda woman will do

Bobby should probably go home. It wasn’t late—the bar was only just beginning to fill up. But he was just making himself depressed, sitting all alone and watching strangers enjoy themselves. If it had been just a few years ago, he would’ve made a connection within minutes of arriving. He would’ve made some just-for-tonight friends and ended his night by fooling around with a girl in his truck. He would’ve been able to go home feeling a hell of a lot better than he had when he arrived.

There was a small group of women clustered around a pool table a few yards away from him. Only one of the women was playing, having started a game with a man who had been sitting a nearby table. Her three friends were energetically chatting amongst themselves while occasionally watching the game with mild disinterest. All four of the women were cute. They were younger than Bobby, but not so young that he shouldn’t be paying them any attention. But then, it wasn’t an age gap that might make them find him creepy.

It was his scalp.

He couldn’t seem to stop himself from picking at it. He knew in the long run this bad habit he had picked up was going to screw him over. The thick, pink, raised scar on his scalp was scabby and oozed often. His fingernails were permanently dark brown from touching it. No one could see the sticky, scabbed-over scar when he was wearing his wig, but he was starting to worry that maybe people could smell it. He didn’t smell anything, and neither Drayton nor Bubba had said anything to him about it stinking. But they could all be used to it.

If anyone could smell the blood and pus coming from his head, that’d _really_ kill his chances of having so much as a friendly conversation, let alone scoring. He hoped his wig acted as enough of a shield, but it came with its own set of anxieties. If he was gonna be fucking someone, she’d have to find out it wasn’t his real hair pretty fast. The thought of coming out and confessing that made him feel a little nauseous. But at the same time, he would drop dead of embarrassment if he _didn’t_ say anything and his “hair” ended up getting shifted around or, God forbid, came off.

If anyone saw that ugly scar, saw how damp and pitted it was, if anyone saw that he didn’t have his own hair anymore—well, technically, that wasn’t true. He did have a few short, somewhat damaged sprigs scattered around the uninjured side of his head. Maybe one day it would all grow back, and he wouldn’t need to wear a wig at all if he could only stop touching his scalp and let it heal.

He didn’t even realize he was scratching most of the time. He’d be lost in thought, or talking to his brothers, or just staring off into space and then all of a sudden, his head would be stinging, and his fingers would be wet and pinkish-brown. The last thing he wanted was to go to the VA hospital, but fuck, maybe they’d be able to tell him what he could do to stop his picking.

He’d really come to earn that nickname he’d picked up in the infirmary. With every passing day, “Chop Top” was becoming a more fitting nickname than “Bobby.” He never saw what he’d looked like with his skull split open and his skin and hair hanging off his head, but he figured if he kept this up he might have a pretty good idea of how he’d looked. Even now, he was rubbing his scar through the wig, failing to soother that ever-present itching.

“Fuck me,” Bobby hissed under his breath. He had managed to catch himself before he started bleeding this time, but now his scalp was stinging _and_ itching. He sighed through his nose and gripped the edge of the bar with both hands, letting his nails dig into the wood. He had always liked wearing nail polish and had recently come up with the idea to paint his nails dark colors to disguise the thick, dark crust that had accumulated under them. But the stuff he got was cheap, and he tended to fidget with his hands when he wasn’t busy picking apart his own head, so the color would always chip within hours of him putting it on. As a result, his nails had become an unattractive mess of blood, dirt, and paint.

He looked up from his hands and over at the women by the pool table. Two of them were paired off now—the one who had been playing pool was still at it, and one of her friends had taken a seat at a table a few feet away from her group with some guy who must’ve just arrived. The two girls who were left would be snapped up soon. They both had long blonde hair. One wore hers in a French braid while the other wore hers down. They were both well-groomed and dressed stylishly, though neither of them looked uppity or unapproachable. They both had inviting, friendly faces made friendlier by the fact that they were laughing.

His instinct was to finish his beer and then go over and talk to them. But he’d been squashing that instinct down hard. He was out of practice. He used to be pretty good at talking to girls (if he did say so himself), until he’d taken a fucking machete to the head. That ugly as sin scar had done a damn good job of wrecking his confidence. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d gotten laid. He knew it hadn’t been since ‘Nam. He’d tried once when he got back—there was this girl, Joy, who he’d had a sort of friends with benefits relationship before he’d met Maisie. Maybe six months after he came home, he’d looked Joy up and given her a call.

Joy had always been a party girl. She loved getting drunk and high. But the last time he’d seen her—probably a month or two before he’d met Maisie—she wasn’t doing any of the hard shit. Apparently weed wasn’t cutting it for her nowadays, because when Bobby had met up with her, she had been so smacked up that the mere idea of touching her felt extremely wrong. So, he had left. He’d been home a year now, so that would’ve been almost six months ago.

He hadn’t been too much of a Flower-Seeker in ‘Nam. Sure, he’d been lonely as hell and horny out of his mind, but he’d had a tough time not thinking about Maisie. He couldn’t bring himself to pretend that the five years he’d been with her hadn’t happened. Missing her didn’t stop him, but he always found himself feeling sort of guilty and much lonelier afterwards. He didn’t have any reason to feel guilty. He wasn’t cheating on her. Technically, they hadn’t broken up—they’d just said goodbye. But they both knew it was over on that horrible winter morning. Whether or not he made it out alive, they’d never see each other again. Too much had changed since they first met.

And that was all his fault.

There’d been a lot of times since he’d come home where he’d thought about finding out whatever happened to Maisie. He wouldn’t get in touch with her directly—he’d track down one of their old friends and find out what they knew. It wouldn’t be fair to Maisie to jut show up out of nowhere. She probably thought he was dead. Honestly, that was alright with him. He had really put her through the ringer for that last year. He had broken her heart, he knew that. To contact her out of the blue would be cruel. She didn’t deserve that. He couldn’t put her through that.

After a few months, he’d decided it would be best to just leave it be. That part of his life was over. It had been for a long time. But he always got a lump in his throat if either “I Got You Babe” or “I’ll Be Your Mirror” came on the radio. He could never hear them without thinking of her, and he hadn’t made it all the way through either song without changing the station in years.

Bobby had a pretty good idea of what had happened to Maisie after he left. She’d take some time to grieve, to heal, but then she’d move on with her life. He was certain she’d been snapped up the second she was ready to date again. He still didn’t exactly know what she’d seen in him, with her being the catch that she was. Maisie was kind-hearted, loyal, smart as a whip, fun as hell, and drop-dead gorgeous. Any man would be a fool to let her go. He certainly was. Wherever Maisie was, Bobby hoped she was happy. She deserved a happy ending. And she’d probably gotten it. A lot could happen in five years.

Fucking hell, five years. He was thirty years old. And here he was, a Vietnam vet sporting the mother of all head injuries, sitting alone in a sports bar on a Thursday night, single, and still living in his grandparents’ house. So much for the goddamn American Dream.

This wasn’t at all what he’d been picturing his life would be like when he came home. He hadn’t wanted to go in the first place—the only thing that had kept him going was the hope that things would be better when he got back. They weren’t. For one, that “lifestyle” of theirs had supposed to be a one-time deal, a temporary fix. But no this was just the way things were for what was left of the Sawyer family.

The first one had been an accident. It had been Drayton’s idea to “not let the meat go to waste.” That’d been the worst meal of Bobby’s life, even after eating nothing but canned beans and run-over jackrabbits for a year. He’d barely been able to get through that dinner and was sick the whole next day. There had been four more times before he’d left for ‘Nam. It had gotten easier every time, but it was supposed to be over by the time he came home. And it wasn’t. He could kill without batting an eye now—between the war and finding food, Bobby had become mostly desensitized to violence.

He knew he wasn’t supposed to be this way.

They hadn’t been doing much better financially, either. That was the biggest reason they had to keep doing this. They couldn’t afford to buy their meat. Bobby had kept some of the money he’d gotten for serving (and for getting injured) hidden away for himself. But Drayton had gotten his hands on a good chunk of it and was using it to bankroll a new business. Bobby was confident in Drayton’s cooking and figured he’d do well enough once he could actually make some headway in the barbecue game. But he wasn’t so sure that would happen so long as Drayton insisted on staying in Newt.

The biggest thing that had soured his return home was, of course, the death of Nubbins. It had never once occurred to him that there would come a time when he’d have to live without his twin. Sure, Bobby had hoped to get a place of his own one day. But there was a difference between not living in the same house as your twin and him dying on you. His whole life, it had been “Bobby and Nubbins.” Now it was just Bobby. Except it wasn’t even Bobby anymore, it was Chop Top. He loved Bubba and was more than happy to hang out with him, but it wasn’t quite the same. Bubba and Nubbins weren’t the same person. Not that he blamed Bubba for that. But Bobby had started bringing Nubbins downstairs at dinnertime. He didn’t like leaving him upstairs all day. But Grandma always stayed upstairs. They were all a little too scared to try moving her.

This wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. Bubba and Nubbins weren’t supposed to have gotten laid off. Grandma wasn’t supposed to have died. Bubba wasn’t supposed to start hiding his face. There wasn’t supposed t have been an energy crisis. They weren’t supposed to have gone hungry.

Nobody was supposed to have gotten killed, accident or not. Nobody was supposed to have gotten eaten. He wasn’t supposed to have been drafted. He wasn’t supposed to have had his head split open. He was supposed to still be with Maisie. Nubbins was supposed to still be alive. That’s the way things were supposed to be. Hell, if he went back even further, Mamma wasn’t supposed to have died and Pas wasn’t supposed to have left. Grandma and Grandpa had done a good job taking care of them, but… they weren’t their parents.

… But, honestly…

What the fuck could he do about all that? There wasn’t a thing he could do to change everything that had happened. What was done was done. This was the way life was now. He couldn’t change it by sitting around feeling sorry for himself.

He and what remained of his family were criminals and would remain criminals so long as they couldn’t afford to b upstanding citizens. Which might be forever. His mother, grandmother, and twin were all dead. He’d royally fucked up the best relationship he’d ever had a long time ago. He’d gone to war and come back different. And that was that. He was wasting his time being depressed over it. He needed to get over it. He needed to suck it up. He needed to let go. He needed to move on.

He could start by rebuilding his social life. Maybe he’d never find a real connection again, maybe he’d never have anything more than casual friends and one-night stands going forward. That was better than nothing. But to make that happen, he had to suppress his shame and anxiety over what other people might think of his scalp. And what did he have to be embarrassed about, anyway? It wasn’t _his_ fault he’d gotten a head wound. The picking was on him, sure, but the scar itself? Not giving a fuck was the one thing he did back then that he should still be doing now. He didn’t have to go around showing it off or anything, but why would he want to associate with anyone who thought less of him because he’d been injured in the line of duty?

Bobby could feel his heartbeat pick up as these thoughts spun around his head. He downed the last few swallows of his beer, which had gone warm from sitting so long. He grimaced. All four girls had scattered throughout the bar, each with a different man. The one who had been playing pool seemed to have disappeared entirely. He sighed, bracing his elbow on the bar, and holding his chin in his hand. So much for talking t any of them. He’d known that he hadn’t had much of a chance, especially since he’d taken so long to decide to make a move. Still, he couldn’t help being a little disappointed.

He saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. Bobby looked to his right and was surprised to see a woman sitting next to him. There was an empty stool between them, but she made eye contact with him when he glanced at her. She gave him a shy little smile and he smiled back. She had full lips and a cheerful face. Her hair fell in thick caramel waves down to the middle of her back. She was tapping her nails, which were painted a velvety blue, against the bar. She looked a little nervous like she didn’t know what to do with herself.

Bobby took a deep breath, then slid over onto the next stool, closing the gap between him and the woman. The chance that he’d get lucky was slim, but he didn’t care about that all that much right now. He’d count it as a win if he could have a nice, easy conversation with a woman for just five minutes. She glanced at him again and he turned to face her.

“Hey,” he said, gripping his right wrist with his left hand to keep himself from scratching his head. She smiled, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

“Hi,” she replied brightly. Her eyes were a warm, dark blue and her voice was gentle and sweet. “What’s your name?”

“P-people, uh—people call me Chop Top.”

**Author's Note:**

> I debated posting this for a long time since there are minor... spoilers? for an upcoming project I'm working on. But I figured all of the other oneshots I've posted have been just as spoiler-y so it doesn't matter.  
> Also I know I keep talking about Maisie without ever showing her, but don't worry, you'll get to see her in action soon enough :)


End file.
